Don’t abuse their trust

I thought I’d mentioned on my blog the importance of not taking your list’s subscribers for granted, but a search didn’t turn up any results on the topic. Shame on me. Guess I’m the one doing the “taking for granted” and should not assume everyone knows that.

Reading this post on Andy Sernovitz’s “Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That” blog reminded me of the unique fact that email is the only form of “advertising” that people specifically ask to receive. It’s so easy to create and send that it’s easy to forget that your spot in your recipients’ inbox isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. Your recipients may have asked for your communications, but only under the parameters you set forth on your sign-up page (i.e. the content and frequency you promoted).

But if you live up to the promise you made to your recipients from the get-go when they gave you their permission to send them your newsletters, you should have a long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationship with an attentive audience. What could be better than that?!